Bicycle For Your Mind
QB 004: Rectangle Pro Manages Windows
Rectangle Pro Icon
Product: Rectangle Pro
Price: Purchase for US$9.99
Window management is a popular software category on macOS. There are a ton of competitors in this space.
An incomplete list of the competition includes:
- Moom · Many Tricks
- Magnet – Window manager for Mac
- Split Screen Pro: Complete Window Management App for Mac
- Window Tidy
- Mizage - Divvy
- Amethyst | ianyh
- koekeishiya/yabai: A tiling window manager for macOS based on binary space partitioning
There are both commercial applications and free alternatives.
I have been using an Alfred workflow called Div — a simple Alfred window manager | pawelgrzybek.com.
macOS Monterey has parts of the functionality built into the system.
What Does a Window Manager Do?
Lets you arrange the open windows in your desktop. Not useful on a laptop screen, but if you have your laptop hooked up to an external monitor, or are on an iMac with a big screen, you will benefit from such a program.
My most common use-case is when I am reading a PDF file in PDF Expert and taking notes in a text editor. Having the two windows side by side makes the process easier.
I have my doubts about the efficacy of this arrangement. There are certain advantages to the act of focusing on one window and doing work in that window, but there are also pertinent use-cases for window management of this nature. So a mixture of one window at a time and multiple windows at certain times might be the optimal solution. Window managers let you arrange the windows that you want open in an arrangement you prefer.
Rectangle Pro Does Window Management Right
Window management programs have the ability to define a whole slew of keyboard commands to manage your windows. This level of customizability is fantastic but you are going to be drowning in keyboard commands and it is going to be difficult to remember them. Rectangle Pro lets you use a simple key combo: Hold down the ⌃ and ⌘ keys and move your mouse to where you want the window to be and an overlay appears on your screen. Pick the overlay which you want and let go. The window moves to cover that overlay.
I disabled all the keyboard commands and use this feature to arrange my windows. Admittedly I am not a heavy user of this feature, but it works for me when I need it.
Conclusion
Rectangle Pro is the right solution for me. It is deep, well-designed software which does a great job of managing your windows.
Heartily recommended.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie.
Note: The developer provided a promo code for Hookshot, a previous iteration of this product when I asked for one.